


all i ask of you

by NoirSongbird



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon Divergent, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, vldposday2018, written before season 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-03-26 18:57:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13863930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoirSongbird/pseuds/NoirSongbird
Summary: Lotor worries about his upcoming Trials of Marmora, and Keith arrives with assurances and affection.Written for VLD Positivity Day 2018.





	all i ask of you

**Author's Note:**

> So! This is a little late because yesterday was...messy, but here's my fic for VLD Positivity Day 2018, a gift for [averan-edits](http://averan-edits.tumblr.com) on tumblr!! It's Keitor, which I hadn't written before, but...I love them.

Lotor paced back and forth in his room, feeling a light note of panic in the back of his head. There were many reasons to wish to prove his sincerity to the Blade of Marmora, of course; all the ones he'd presented in his discussion with Kolivan still stood, and they made _sense_. He meant to prove that he was better than his father, and that the Blade had nothing to fear from him. That his intentions were upfront. The way the Trials of Marmora got into a person's head, made their greatest hopes and fears reality, would do more than enough to lay all of Lotor's intentions bare. It would also allow him to fight on the front lines as a member of the Blade, and Lotor ached for that opportunity. There was only so much inaction he could tolerate, and he would rather die than continue to be idle when people might need him.

That did not make the idea of his psyche being cracked open and laid before the Blade for judgement any less terrifying.

Lotor did not let people in. He did not open up, did not discuss his feelings—not unless it was with someone incredibly close to him. The idea of even _Kolivan,_ who if Lotor were honest he had begun to see as something of a mentor figure, getting too good a look into his head was utterly terrifying, never mind any other Blades that might decide to stop by and see what the son of their greatest enemy was like in person.

There was a knock on the door, and Lotor paused in his pacing. He wasn't expecting visitors—wasn't necessarily _not_ expecting them either, but he couldn't think of who might be stopping by, and the idea of certain people seeing him as stressed as he was—

"It's Keith," the voice on the other side said, and Lotor let out a brief exhale. Well. That was one of the people he would mind _less_ seeing him in distress.

"Come in," he said, and the door opened. Keith stepped through and shut it behind him, and gave Lotor the little half-smile of his that Lotor had come to associate with him being nervous.

"Kolivan mentioned you were gonna do the Trials tomorrow," he said, "and I thought you might want to...not be alone? Beforehand?" He clasped his fingers together and fiddled his thumbs in a way that had also become familiar and was, for Lotor, an incredibly adorable physical expression of nerves. "Actually, I think Kolivan mentioned it because he thought so too." Keith shrugged, and Lotor exhaled.

"You were right," he said, and he sat on the bed and beckoned Keith over, and was pleased when Keith didn't sit next to him, but instead casually dropped into his lap. Lotor had learned, over the course of their still-new relationship, that Keith could be incredibly physically affectionate, when he wanted to be. He sought the comfort of touch, when it was offered, and Lotor was the last person to deny him that. So, he let Keith shift up against him, and he slid an arm around his waist while Keith loosely draped one around his shoulders. "You know that emotional disclosure does not come naturally to me. The idea of having the entire Blade see..." He shook his head. "It is not something I find comforting."

"Yeah, I'd figure not," Keith said. He gave Lotor a sympathetic smile, and pulled some of his hair forward, beginning to work it into a braid. "I didn't like it either, when I realized what had happened after." His cheeks colored. "It, uh. Wasn't fun."

Lotor hummed and nuzzled against Keith's hair, simple physical reassurance for his... _boyfriend_ , was the human term Keith had taught him, though Lotor still preferred _lover._ And a few Galra endearments that never failed to make Keith flush, but that was for another time.

"I don't think it is intended to be," he said idly, and Keith snorted. "Regardless, I...am not sure I am prepared."

"I don't think you can be," Keith said. "I could tell you more about my Trial, give you an idea of what you might come up against? Kolivan said it's different for everybody, and, you know, obviously, since everybody's got different hangups, but ours might be kind of alike?" He shrugged his shoulders. "You'll probably get the puzzle part quicker than I did, though. You're a lot better at double meanings than I am."

"Yes, well," Lotor said, "you know I am more than fond of how straightforward you are, _majramano._ " Keith did flush, at that, and Lotor laughed a little and bent to steal a kiss, which Keith gladly gave. It was, if Lotor were being honest, his favorite word for his beloved; a Galra term that meant, directly, _'my sword-arm,'_ but had acquired the contextual meaning, when applied to a loved one, of something more like _'someone I cannot imagine living without and whose loss would greatly diminish me.'_

"Yeah, well," Keith coughed, and Lotor forced himself not to laugh at the still-adorable flush on his cheeks, "it's not...the best, when you're trying to figure out a word puzzle that you don't even realize is a word puzzle." Lotor hummed and filed that away. Paying attention to double meanings would be important, then. Perhaps not surprising, given the Blade's work involved quite a lot of subterfuge. He would have to carefully consider everything he was told.

If he was told anything at all, of course.

"I don't want you to tell me too much. Part of the Trial will be in putting things apart myself, including obscured word puzzles," Lotor said. That was true enough, and he suspected that it wasn't quite _cheating_ to hear tales of someone else's Trial, or Kolivan would have made it more explicit that they ought not to discuss it, since Kolivan was clearly more than aware that they had grown close in Lotor's time with Voltron, but it _felt_ a bit like cheating. Even if he _did_ long to go into it with more knowledge than he had so far, which was that it was a trial, and by definition would therefore be difficult; it involved multiple initiated members of the Blade; the suit designed for the Trial bared the wearer's mindscape for all to see; and it played into the Blades' motto of _'knowledge or death.'_ He would succeed in the Trials, or apparently, die trying.

The latter, of course, was not an option.

"Y'know," Keith said, as he finished braiding the section of Lotor's hair he'd pulled forward and let it go, "if you're worried about failing, you shouldn't be. I think you're gonna do a lot better at this than you think you are."

"So much faith in me," Lotor said, and he said it with a laugh, like it was a joke, but it wasn't.

The list of people who were willing to believe in Lotor was vanishingly short. Once upon a time, it had included Acxa, Zethrid, Narti, and Ezor, but...well. That was no longer true. It had certainly never included his parents. Some days, it didn't even include _himself_ . But Keith? Keith's faith was, apparently, utterly unwavering. Lotor still wasn't sure what he had done to earn Keith's love and his loyalty, but whatever it was, he was thankful for it, because he wasn't sure what he would do if he _didn't_ have Keith in his corner.

It had started because Keith sought him out after Naxela, to thank him for arriving in time to intervene and, apparently, save Keith's life. Lotor had been surprised to see a human in a Blade's armor, with a luxite blade at his hip, and Keith had admitted to being half-Galra, and that was the beginning. After that, it had been a lot of simply running into each other when Keith wasn't away on assignment with the Blade, and eventually purposely seeking each other out, because Lotor found he very much enjoyed Keith's company. Keith was clever, even if he didn't think so, and had a sharp tongue and a very realistic and thorough outlook.

Lotor wasn't sure when he had started falling in love with Keith, but he knew that he was in it when Keith laughed at a scathing evaluation of the combat skills of another one of the Blades and it made Lotor's heart flip. He hadn't thought he had a chance, then; he'd thought that he was lucky enough to be Keith's _friend_ , and anything more was hopelessly far off on the horizon.

Obviously, he had been wrong.

"Of course," Keith said, and he pressed a kiss to Lotor's cheek. "You've proven you deserve it. And besides, you're a good fighter, so the physical portions of the Trial should be no big deal to you. The mental stuff...I believe in you. You'll get through it. And I'll be waiting for you at the end of it so we can celebrate."

A victory celebration with Keith _did_ sound like an excellent way to end the day after his Trial.

"Spending the evening with you would be ideal, _majramano_ ," he said, and Keith flushed again at the endearment and leaned in to kiss him like ti might stop any further verbal affection. Lotor had to force himself not to laugh, because Keith's reluctance to let himself be adored as he deserved was not _funny_ , but it certainly was _cute_ when he was obviously flustered by something Lotor said.

"I love you," Kieth murmured against his lips, and Lotor sighed happily, leaning into the kiss and tugging Keith closer to him with the arm that still rested around his waist.

"I love you too," he said, when they broke after a kiss that ended up much longer than Lotor expected Keith had anticipated.

"I know," Keith said, and he sounded a little awed by it. "Sometimes I still can't believe it, but I know."

Lotor didn't have to ask why. It was the same reason _he_ had moments where he couldn't quite comprehend what he had done to earn _Keith's_ affections. They were damaged in unfortunately similar ways, and though it had happened in different ways and for different reasons (Lotor's parents were _physically_ present, but absent in every way that counted; Keith's were simply _gone_ ) they were two lonely souls who had been lucky enough to find each other.

"I will always be here to remind you why, on the days you have trouble seeing the reasons yourself," Lotor said, because it was worth saying. Keith was deeply important to him, and sometimes that was terrifying, because the _last_ people he had allowed himself to care about had betrayed him, but Keith was—Keith was not like that, and he had proved that a thousand times over.

"And I'll do the same for you," Keith said, and he leaned in to draw Lotor into another kiss. Lotor went eagerly, eyes closing.

This was truly the best of all possible distractions from his anxieties about the upcoming Trial. Keith, Lotor knew, sometimes struggled with the best words to express himself, or with connecting to people, but he certainly seemed to know all the right things to _do._ Distantly, Lotor made a note to tell him so, another time, because right then he was far more interested in kissing Keith than saying anything else to him. That was a _far_ better use of his mouth, at the least.

Keith broke first, but it was only to give them both a moment to breathe. Lotor's eyes opened, and his heart skipped at what he saw, because Keith's expression was incredibly soft. Far softer than Lotor deserved, but he was glad to see it. (That was true of so many things, with Keith.)

"You are...incredibly beautiful," Lotor said. Keith's eyebrows quirked up, and he looked incredibly amused at the compliment.

"Says maybe the most beautiful man I've ever laid eyes on," he said, lightly. Lotor laughed.

"It _is_ true, though." He reached up and cupped Keith's cheek. "Thank you," he said, very seriously, "for coming here tonight. For many, many other things too, but for that, first and foremost."

"I wasn't gonna leave you to stew alone," Keith said. "The Trials are scary. They're hard. But like I said, I believe in you. You've got this, sweetheart." Lotor knew some of the context of that endearment was behind him, but he was fond of it, not the least because it was the one Keith used for him most often. "So, you don't want to hear about my Trial, and that's fair, but? As much as I wouldn't _mind_ sitting here and making out with you all night, is there something I can do? To make this easier?"

"Just...stay with me," Lotor said. "Knowing that you are here does more to assure me that I will get through this than you realize.

"I can do that," Keith said, and his expression softened again, and Lotor had to lean in and kiss him, or he might have melted right there in Keith's arms.

Yes, he could do this. In the morning, he would succeed in the Trials.

For now, though, he had a lapful of the most beautiful man in the universe, and Lotor more than intended to lavish him with all the affection he deserved.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on tumblr at [noirsongbird](http://noirsongbird.tumblr.com)!


End file.
